Closing T20 thoughts

Like many of you, I watched the post-match interview with Mickey Arthur last night and it was clear that he was hurting. I am sure the players are and rest assured the long-suffering supporters feel it more than most..

There is no question that most of the players have underperformed in this competition. The only one who comes out of it with major credit is Pat Brown, who bowled with intelligence and considerable skill throughout. Zak Chappell did pretty well and Samit Patel was usually economical. Yet there were various reasons for our poor displays, as I shall explain.

There was a marked decline in batting. Only eight scores in excess of fifty were made, compared to thirteen the year before. The most obvious decline was Wayne Madsen, but he should not be blamed for the failings of the team overall and of the coaching staff. 

I do not think it was helpful to continually harp on about 'aggressive' 'sexy' cricket played by 'entertainment machines'. I would prefer professional, combative, street smart cricket played by people who adapted their game to the circumstance of the match. 

We threw away several matches with poor decision-making. Leaving the last over to Luis Reece at Northampton was daft. Only making 179 after being 110-1 in ten at Headingley was shocking. Playing only one overseas player in most of the tournament was professional suicide, even though it was an obvious consequence of flawed recruitment. 

Time after time we blew good positions. Nye Donald often got us off to a flying start, but too infrequently built on it. The fine line between brilliance and thoughtlessness was crossed too many times by him and he needs to show that he is more than a player who can smack a few as if it is a beer match, then go back to the pavilion with the job not even half done. 

Yet he provided most of the few bright memories of Derbyshire batting. The rest suffered from a lack of knowledge as to what our best lineup actually was, batting positions that changed with the wind and a collective lack of game awareness. While individuals must take ownership of their failings in the middle, I was never left with any great feeling of a steady hand on the tiller. 

Team selection was never consistent, any more than batting order. The opening pairing of Donald and Lloyd showed promise, yet was prematurely abandoned. Reece was recalled, despite clear signs of decline in this format from previous years and the results were often painful to watch. Guest was up and down the order with seemingly no clarity on his role, Whiteley seemed to be the batting equivalent of Goldilocks' porridge, never quite at the right place in the order. Came got a couple of games and was then abandoned, Wagstaff bowled well in one game but was seemingly an afterthought thereafter. Neither Lloyd nor Madsen looked fully fit, a contributory factor, but I never felt confident about the batting unit and the failure to reinforce it with an overseas player was a big mistake.

Neither Patel nor Whiteley got close to the returns that were needed, both of them sadly suggesting that their best days are behind them. Each played a couple of innings, but that was simply not good enough, in a season when it was all anyone really managed. Questions have to be asked about the batting coach, but also about recruitment. Much noise was made about Derbyshire becoming 'the county of choice' but there has been no evidence of that.

Recruitment has been little more than a shambles this year. While I have every sympathy for Blair Tickner and his wife and their off field challenges, neither he nor Daryn Dupavillon suggested they were close to the required standard of an overseas import. It was always likely that the standouts in the team would be Chappell and Brown, which made the decision to recruit two specialist seam bowlers ludicrous in the extreme. It was equally obvious that to play them both would leave a lengthy tail, which was hardly a game plan of cunning, with such a flimsy batting line up. We waited for Mohammad Amir, but although he bowled tidily, he never suggested he was at full pace and never won us a game. Which is why you sign such players, after all. Zaman Khan did so, last year and how he was missed.

When we did, belatedly, sign a batter, it was a third wicket keeper, when we were already fielding two. It made little sense, but injury apparently limited the appearances of Cam Fletcher, even though he was oddly named in squads.

Compare and contrast: some may say we did okay, as a small county, but so are Northamptonshire and they qualified. They also recruited well - a look at their batting averages show Raza, Breetzke and Agar in the first three positions, two of them also bowlers. Not forgetting the shrewd acquisition of Ravi Bopara..

Then there is Leicestershire. They brought in Jimmy Neesham and also took Lewis Goldsworthy on loan from Somerset, who came second in the batting averages and top of the bowling. We should have been all over such a signing, as I wrote last year, when I also mentioned Ethan Brookes, who has done well for Worcestershire.

It was always clear to me - read older posts if you wish - that the fifth bowler was going to be an issue. Despite the challenges of the World Cup, a coach with Mickey Arthur's background should have been able to find an all rounder from somewhere, failing which a spinner, failing which cutting the losses and signing a top batter.

If you recruit a star bowler - let alone average ones - for T20 he can only influence four overs. A batter can do so over 20, an all rounder more. The Derbyshire class of 2024 was shorn of du Plooy, Haider Ali and Tom Wood and the loss was keenly felt. 

The bottom line is that no Derbyshire player who was here in 2023 has improved. It is a shame to have to write it, but it is also an undeniable fact. So either the message is being lost in translation between coaches and players, the environment is not conducive to improvement or the players signed and re-signed are simply not good enough. For the record, I don't think it is the latter, in most cases.

Mickey Arthur said again last night that there are some very good players in the dressing room. There are, so supporters have to question why they are not producing their best. They were all signed by or given new contracts by him, so something is wrong.

Given that he said at the time of his appointment that four years was about the right length of contract, because the message starts to get lost at that point, it seems we are there a year early. 

I don't think the board would be brave enough to call time on his tenure, nor can we probably afford to do so. 

But I am less than optimistic that the club can be turned around until there is an overhaul of the coaching staff. There appears to be a disconnect that isn't going to go away until we do so.

That win over Nottinghamshire and the one over Yorkshire at Chesterfield seem like a very long time ago..